


The Briar-Maze

by taichara



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:03:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: A quiet night turns into a very unexpected sort of rumination.





	The Briar-Maze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalloway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalloway/gifts).



A perfect night, that's what it was. The sky a velvety black vault studded with stars; the cool of the breeze against bare flesh in contrast to the faint warmth of the hood of the car; the ruffle and lift of his hair in that same breeze, as if phantom fingers laced through it slowly ...

... the sound of his nails, grating against cherry-red enamel.

Akio stilled. And rolled onto his back, lifting his hands into the air like a cat that just touched paws to a stovetop. Bad habit; a bad, _nervous_ habit he'd killed off long, long ago.

_Not so long as I thought, or as thoroughly as I wished, apparently. Unfortunately._

There was no audience for him to play to (more's the pity), no Duels to tug strings on nor encounters to orchestrate, nor even stray pawns to let wander across the board of the Game until he scooped them up again. No, no, it was all tied up quite neatly now -- even that affair with Tsuchiya, so close and yet so very far from the mark -- and all he had to do was keep all the remaining parts in play long enough.

That was all. Just that, and it perhaps, just perhaps, would be an end to the Game.

Nails grated against enamel. Akio muttered a gutteral curse, resigned and disgruntled.

"If you saw me right this moment, would your illusions shatter?"

But who was 'you' in that scenario? Oh, any of them ... and there had been so very many over the years. Others, even, that almost made it as far as one certain spoiler of a Duelist. Almost, almost.

Almost was not good enough.

It was not good enough and he could fancy he felt an abyss ready to gape jagged jaws wide beneath him to devour him whole; a sentiment he would never admit to. _Could_ never admit to; it was against the rules of the Game. It was not the role he was cast to play. At that, he could sense his own mind already walling the fleeting fancy away again, a tiny recreation of the shard of himself buried in a phantom palace. Puppets; the Bride was not the only puppet here and it _galled_ in the same breath that he enjoyed it, that he took every advantage of it. 

Was that not what she wanted, after all, that long-ago night under the starry sky when she cast aside those small precious portions and took the rest away -- took him away? -- and the roaring mob made her pay for transgressions in blood and blades --

Grate. Grate. He swore again. Drew slow, soothing breaths. Relaxed every muscle, slowly, langurously, til he half slid across the hood's gentle slope, jacket flared like broken wings and his hair like a clinging banner of trailing lilacs, and he stared up into the glittering abyss of the starry sky above.

It was so close. _He_ was so close. All it would take was just the _right_ nudge at the _right_ time and he would _have_ her, have led her to the Palace for one last and lethal duel and then, and then ...

No gouges against cherry red now, oh no. Now, contemplative, almost lazily, long graceful fingers traced the contours of a phantom blade against warm metal. So much bound into that shining fragment, and not a single 'champion' had unraveled it all. Almost a shame, really. But the current one, now ...

_How did he -- I -- he -- how did _I_ single Tenjou out? And why?_

_I should have dragged the answer out, one way or another._

Sword-traceries turned to roses, his hand shifted briefly to his own breast, tangled in his hair, returned to the smooth enamel of the hood. Was the breeze cooler now, or was it him? Not that any of this was unpleasant, or unusual -- _distracting_ , that was how to describe it. A distraction when he did not at all want one. Damn the Game; damn his own impulses. Damn it all.

Tracing, tracing; star signs now, constellations of a dozen nations and more that he sought out nightly, an idle hobby to while away the time. The eternal stars, the ephemeral stars ... how many more planets would be discovered while he lay tangled and spent in the snares of the Game?

_Irrelevant. Stay on point or be undone forever, fool -- and what sort of fool have I become, to let her scheming get this far in the first place?_

_A fool kept amused, that's exactly it, distracted by the dead and dying. A few feeble chances to joust with fate the way I used to._

_She's taunting me._

The abyss clashed its phantom jaws. Akio closed his eyes, tilting back his head to show his throat to the uncaring stars as a most secret of smiles played across his lips. Let them see him, let them be distracted, let them wonder and wish and _want_. 

It was all an illusion, after all, a hollow china doll with no substance to it. 

No prince on a white horse to be found here --

Fire lanced through his chest -- as it always did -- as the thought raked across his mind. This time cold lightning followed it, straight down his spine and prompting a shiver that shook him to the bone. It was the answer, of course. There could be no other answer to the questions.

 _She_ saw her champion, her _betrothed_ , as more than simply her current pawn. That much had always been clear, but now the thought brought the slick chill of sweat to the nape of Akio's neck. If -- if! -- he could not break her, if he did not _win_ , then ...

... Then Tenjou may well defy the Swords and undo it all. 

By replacing him.

He, who lost all, who did not fight the clashing blades and the bloodied mob, set aside in the end; a new plaything for the old. And his sister would be free of the Game to do as she wished. Alongside her new 'prince'.

He had not been princely for so very long. Wasn't that right?

And _he_ \-- of course. Akio knew _him_ as he knew himself, because -- because. Because he _was_. Rolling laughter, dark and mad, carried across the gardens; Akio sprawled across the hood of his so-patient steed, heaved himself up in one fluid motion, settled akilter and askew against the windshield, flushed and windblown. Of course. Of _course_.

Of course that wretched, mutilated, precious echo would go to -- would be drawn to -- a young lady in distress and offer hope ... and with the same stroke, provide a key to his own sins by eventual extinguishment. Such a _noble_ sacrifice, ending himself to inspire another and even, perhaps, just possibly, to set his sister --

\-- the _witch_ \--

\-- free from the Game she trapped herself in.

More mirth escaped, and Akio fancied he could nearly taste blood and salt on his tongue. Oh, clever. Too clever. But he would _not_ let it happen --

Grate. Grate.

_I don't need Tenjou to win. I don't need her to think she can, or must, dethrone me. All I need -- all she needs to do -- is listen, and believe, long enough to render me what is mine._

_That's all. And the lure, now, that is exactly what I can offer._

Oh, pleasant thoughts, that. Akio slid down the windshield just a hair, eyes sliding lazily closed again. He could almost fancy the hollow filled once more, again, in the not so distant future. And oh, time would tell who the real champion of the Game might be, and who might change that bitter, wretched world of blood and blades --

Some things, fallen as he was, only he could do.


End file.
